Localized heating, or “hot spots,” in a solar cell can occur because of interconnection failure, cell failure, partial shading, mismatch of photo current from solar cell to solar cell, and/or partial shading. For example, when a single solar cell connected in series generates less current than other solar cells in the series, localized heating may occur because the current flowing through each solar cell in the series is not equal. Damage to, for example, a module of solar cells can occur if the localized heating of one or more solar cells become too high.
Many tests have been developed to test the ability of a solar cell to withstand hot spot heating. In these tests, a solar cell can reach a temperature of approximately 120° C., and this heat is not easily dissipated during testing. When testing a large number of solar cells, the tests need to be stopped or delayed for a certain time between each solar cell to allow a testing apparatus to cool down. However, this delay reduces the speed of the tests and therefore allows only a very limited number of solar cells to be tested at a given time.